Lambs to the Slaughter: Comparing the 2011-12 Isles to the 2000-01 Leafs

(This bit is too obscure [I think] for PHT, so I thought I'd plop it here.)

I've already compared Sidney Crosby's comeback to the one Mario Lemieux made back from retirement, but there's no doubt that they aren't perfect parallels. Crosby is much, much younger than Lemieux was and aside from an in-his-prime Jaromir Jagr, Lemieux didn't have anywhere near the team around him.

But the biggest difference is that New York Islanders are way worse than the 2000-01 Toronto Maple Leafs were. Allow me to compare and contrast the situations just a little bit:

• The Maple Leafs trotted out borderline Hall of Famer Curtis Joseph as their goalie. The Islanders have Anders Nilsson in net. Yeah, that's a pretty huge difference.

• Toronto had a (woefully convoluted) 18-12-4-3 record going into their automatic loss; the Islanders are likely to drop to 5-10-3.

• The Leafs had Pat Quinn as their coach while the Isles employ Jack Capuano, who might just make it through his first full NHL season. Maybe.

• Marc-Andre Fleury is just a liiiitttttllllle better than Garth Snow, who probably isn't smiling now that he's on the wrong end of a famous Penguins center's comeback.

So, yes, Crosby already tied Lemieux's one-goal, two-assist performance, but it's probably fair to say that their efforts (and magic) are about equal.

Matt Cooke pie chart

Click to enlarge it yo.

Rankin's (temporary spot while Joomla! gives me fits)

So, Bloguin NHL is coming out with its Power Rankings ... which means that it's time for dumb stat-based fun! Hooray! (Throws confetti alone in a basement)*

* By the way, I've found that there are two groups of people who really get beat up by writers/tooshie-heads in general: "bloggers writing in their mother's basement" and "pimply faced teens." Any time a blogger or teen must be disparaged, they are disparaged in this exact way. It's like some form of cliche facism.

To mix things up, I decided to use a different "formula" to come up with the Power Rankings. Thankfully, for me, this formula still involved no critical thinking on my part. Unfortunately, I had to look at numbers and a spreadsheet. Blogging sucks, brah.

After the jump, CANDY and BOOBIES.

(OK, now imagine that you just clicked a Read More! link and were expecting Reese's peanut butter cups and D-cups ...)

John Candy ...

... and Boobie Miles!

HA! Suckers!

Anyway, here's the dopey formula for this edition of the Power Rankings.

Ingredient One: 5 on 5 scoring (For minus Against)

Sure, special teams are important, but great teams win in normal situations. At least that's what some fat guy who smells like cheese* once told me.

* - This has never happened.**

** - Also, fat guys who smell like cheese are much like bloggers living in basements and acne-addled kids. So we're all hypocrites, really.

Ingredient Two: Goals scored per game minus Goals against per game

Really, just to throw another number in there.

Ingredient Three: Road Wins minus Home Losses

I think a team that can break even or better on the road, yet protects their house like a dude wearing overpriced underwear is usually a team that will do well in the playoffs.

Add them all together and you have the totals for this edition of the Power Rankings.

***

I'm feeling kind of lazy, so I'm going to just throw up the spreadsheet tonight and then give you a nice, bold-faced list of the the ranked teams on Wednesday. Maybe.

(Not satisfied? What if I told you that there will be pithy comments? Ohhhh, now you're ripe!)

Anyway, here's what geography kids would call a "key."

The bold columns are the sums, so "5 on 5" is the result of a team's 5 on 5 goals for minus against. Diff/G refers to a team's goal differential, per game. Tough W is simply Road Wins minus Home Losses. Add 'em all up and you get the power rankings, or PR. PR is so important that it's in bold, it's highlighted AND FUCKING UNDERLINED! Holy shit!

I think this list shows which teams are imbalanced (home dependent or PP dependent), which teams are resilient (lots of road W's) and who might be built for a long playoff run.

Like I said, the following list will be translated into English tomorrow.

(But don't think I've forgotten about my other goober stats. I won't let you off that easily, already departed public. You WILL adopt special teams plus/minus, even if it kills your whole family.)

We've Moved!

CLS is now a member of the Bloguin team.

Our permanent home is at http://www.cyclelikethesedins.com. Along with our new home, we also have a spiffy new logo. So please update your bookmarks and RSS feeds. If you want to be really nice, you could even leave a comment on the new blog!

Hope to see you there ...

http://www.cyclelikethesedins.com

The RSS feed

Link Surfing In The Pacific Division

ARTHUR:
This is Arthur from Anaheim Calling. I never cleared a day or schedule with Gray from Couch Tarts (now at Bloguin), so you may be getting a double dose of the Pac today.

San Jose
First, I refer you to the Couch Tarts post on last night's game with the Stars. The letdown is emblematic of the Sharks season so far. The team is definitely on top of a competitive division, but they look far more mortal than the squad that came roaring out of the gates last year. (Also, I take credit for this win, as I benched Turco on my fantasy team, thus thoroughly jinxing San Jose's sticks for the final stanzas of the game).

Los Angeles
The Royal Half muses on a guaranteed win for the Kings, though there seem to be a lot more of those this season.

Dallas
Scott Glennie talked to Brandon of Defending Big D this week. He's the future of pure scoring in the Pacific Division.

Phoenix
I'm not ashamed to say that I don't know what's happening with the Coyotes, despite the fact that the Desert Dogs were the Ducks' opponents on each of the last two Saturdays, and despite the fact that James Wisniewski controversially Manny-Pacquiao'd Shane Doan in that first meeting. I know this is two weeks old, but I have no links, just this:

Every time I see the video above, I swear I hear Marv Albert saying Boom-shakalaka. I enjoy it only because I remember this video:



Anaheim
The Ducks are on fire sale watch right now, beset by rumors of players headed out the door for little more than a change of locker room scenery. And much of this week's smoke damage came from Giguere, who threw a few heavy quotes to diligent and diligently under-appreciated beat writer J.P. Hoornstra of the LA Daily News. Giguere clarified everything later, but damage has certainly been done.

Anaheim fans are doing a bit of trainspotting these days, but instead of cars, we're watching passengers. Who's coming? Chris Higgins? Vesa Toskala? Who's going? Jiggy? Hiller? Niedermayer? Coach Carlyle? And now that Ducks owner Henry Samueli is back, what are the chances he fires Bob Murray, the only guy who insists nobody's going anywhere?

CLS' #unpublishedNHLbooks entries

Inspiration for "Fight Club" by Alex Semin

Originally I was planning on compiling a "Greatest Hits" of the entire Twitterverse, but that task quickly became overwhelming. Just scroll through the entries in the #unpublishedNHLbooks feed and you'll see that it's a pretty mind blowing compilation of brilliance (along with squabbles between Penguins, Red Wings, Maple Leafs and Senators fans, etc.).

By no means do I think that mine are the best, but there are a few borderline gems (in my opinion). Feel free to share your favorite(s) in the comments or even share a few of your own if you still think Twitter is just about sharing your grocery lists and news about bowel movements.

Anyway, here's a full stream of these fake book ideas. Don't hesitate to admonish/glorify any particularly great/terrible pieces of imaginary literature. (My Twitter Feed)

1. 50 Easy Insect Recipes by Ray Emery #unpublishedNHLbooksabout 9 hours ago from web
   • Delete
2. The Fax of Life by Dale Tallon #unpublishedNHLbooksabout 9 hours ago from web
3. "Fight Club" by Alex Semin about 9 hours ago from web
4. "Empty Net" by Patrik Stefan #unpublishedNHLbooksabout 9 hours ago from web
5. Modern ILLiterature by Jacques Demers #unpublishedNHLbooks
   I assume someone's already done "Cents and Sensibility" by Patrick Kane, right? #unpublishedNHLbooksabout 9 hours ago from web
6. about 9 hours ago from web
7. 
   (I ate) The Three Musketeers by Kyle Wellwood#unpublishedNHLbooks

   "Les Miserables" by Vesa Toskala and the Carolina Hurricanes#unpublishedNHLbooksabout 10 hours ago from web
8. about 10 hours ago from web
9. "Crime and Punishment" by Colin Campbell #unpublishedNHLbooksabout 10 hours ago from web
10. "The Blindside" by Scott Stevens #unpublishedNHLbooksabout 10 hours ago from web
11. "Turn the Lights off, my head hurts" by Eric Lindros#unpublishedNHLbooksabout 10 hours ago from web
12. "Season on the Brink" by the Phoenix Coyotes#unpublishedNHLbooksabout 10 hours ago from web

NW Division Link Time

Hello everyone, I'm back again for this week's links from the NW Division. Please enjoy as I continue to search out the best of the NW Division blog writers.

Low on Oil thinks that Penner may be earning himself a spot on the Team Canada Olympic roster...
-I would think that they are mistaken, but interesting read anyways.

One of the writer's for Hitting the Post, aptly named Wild Road Tripper is following the Wild on their roadtrip. They started in Toronto, will miss Tampa Bay, but be in DC for the Capitals game for Friday's nights game.
-Love the idea of hockey game roadtripping. The best part about the post is that when they hit Canada, because everyone up here clearly knows someone who knows someone who played with someone in the NHL:
The customs inspector played hockey with the brother of Cal Clutterbuck and still plays locally in and around Niagara Falls with his cousin, and also has met Owen Nolan, another Niagara region native. "You have tickets?" he asked. "Yes, sure do" was our reply. I thought for a minute that we were going to do a live version of 'Leafs Lunch'.

Hit the Post travels down to St. Louis and discovers that 'all you can eat snacks' really mean all you can eat popcorn, peanuts, ice cream, cheeseburger, turkey sandwich, dibs ice cream treats, pepsi, diet pepsi, sierra mist....

Mozy19 from Canucks Hockey Blog compares Forsberg vs Sundin and makes a case as to why it IS a good idea for the Canucks to try to sign him.

And for you stats heads out there (not me), Five Hole Fanatics explains how to calculate your own team's scoring chances yourself, which sounds to me as exciting as learning derivatives in Math 101...but hey, to each their own.

Do you think that you've written something worthy of next week's list? Are you a reader of a smaller blog and feel it deserves some attention? Drop me an e-mail at thevancitycanuck [at] gmail.com and maybe you'll end up in the next NW Links around the League.